Everything’s Coming Up Cannes in MUBI’s Slate for May

Leading curated streaming platform MUBI announced today its May release slate featuring films and curated series from both emerging talent and acclaimed directors from across the globe. Next month, as the world of cinema turns its attention to the French Riviera, MUBI pays tribute to the work that has electrified Cannes in years past, with ten stunning films from the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrea Arnold, and Lars Von Trier.

MUBI also lifts the lid on the films of the Berlin School’s best-kept secret, Angela Schanelec, with a career-spanning retrospective culminating in the Locarno Festival favorite The Dreamed Path, as well as offering a selection of highlights from “Art of the Real,” the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of essential and groundbreaking nonfiction film.

Other highlights include: the latest offering in the byNWR series,Night Tide, a cult classic featuring a young Dennis Hopper, newly restored by director Nicolas Winding Refn, Orson Welles’ big screen adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial, which will be shown in celebration of his birthday, and a retrospective from France’s master of nuance and humanity, Claude Sautet.

Highlights from the May line-up are as follows:

Cannes Takeover

While Cannes is in full swing, MUBI will present a fantastic selection of films from the festival’s past, including two Palme d’Or winners — Blue is the Warmest Color andWinter Sleep — as well as a clandestine masterpiece from Jafar Panahi, whose latest film will premiere in competition at Cannes this year. A 10-film collection that undeniably embodies the spirit of the Croisette.

Winter Sleep | dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan | 2014 | MUBI release on May 11

Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal, with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.

Fishtank | dir. Andrea Arnold | 2009 | MUBI release on May 12

Set in East London, an aggressive teenage girl, hoping to walk away from her impoverished life by winning a national dance competition, falls for her mother’s charming, handsome new boyfriend in this invigorating drama that won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the BAFTA for Best British Film.

Set in the powerful Mali Empire of the 13th century, Yeelen follows the journey of Nianankoro, a young warrior who must battle the powerful Komo cult. Nianankoro’s greatest enemy is his own father, a dangerous and corrupt wizard who uses his dark magic to try and destroy his son.

13 Europeans directors explore Sarajevo and what the city represents in European history over the past hundred years, and what it incarnates in Europe today. From different generations and origins, these eminent filmmakers offer many singular styles and visions.

This is Not a Film | dir. Mojtaba Mirtahasebi, Jafar Panahi | 2011 | MUBI release on May 16

It’s been months since Jafar Panahi, stuck in jail, has been awaiting a verdict by the appeals court. By depicting a day in his life, Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb try to portray the deprivations looming in contemporary Iranian cinema.

Lamb | dir. Yared Zeleke | 2015 | MUBI release on May 17

Lamb tells the tale of nine-year-old Ephraim and his constant companion, a sheep named Chuni. Ephraim’s affection for Chuni deepens after he loses his mother to famine.

Europa | dir. Lars von Trier | 1991 | MUBI release on May 18

Akin to a feverish dream, a naive American conductor for the Zentropa railways gets caught in a whirlpool of conspiracies and Nazi sympathisers in postwar Germany.

Nostalghia | dir. Andrei Tarkovsky | 1983 | MUBI release on May 19

The Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov travels through Italy accompanied by his guide and translator as he researches the life of an 18th Century Russian composer, Pavel Sosnovsky.

A teenage girl (Adèle Exarchopoulos) encounters a woman (Léa Seydoux). with blue hair and decides to transform herself into her, causing problems with the girl’s family and friends.

Angela Schanelec: Showing without Telling — Exclusive

The best kept secret of the so-called Berlin School and a contemporary of Christian Petzold, Thomas Arslan, and Maren Ade, Angela Schanelec’s films compose one of the most coherent, compact bodies of work in today’s cinema. MUBI’s retrospective spans the last 15 years of her career, building to her latest beguiling enigma: Locarno Festival favorite The Dreamed Path. Interested in the ineffable side of human relationships, Schanelec’s films examine the fragmentation of German identity after the fall of the wall with stories of individuals and families longing for fulfillment. Her films have a formal rigour that brings Robert Bresson or Chantal Akerman to mind, but with a serenity and elusiveness entirely her own.

A woman faces a variety of emotional crises as she spends the summer interacting in differing ways with friends, family, and lovers in this drama. Valerie is an author in her early thirties who has just moved to Berlin, while her best friend Sophie will be spending the summer in Rome.

Marseille | dir. Angela Schanelec | 2004 | MUBI release on April 12

Marseille describes an interlude in the life of young Berlin photographer Sophie. Wanting a change, Sophie does an apartment swap, so she can go photograph the city of Marseille, and most of all get away from Berlin.

Afternoon | dir. Angela Schanelec | 2007 | MUBI release on April 19

A family spends three summer days in a beautiful lake mansion close to Berlin. Together with her new lover, Irene visits her brother Alex, who still inhabits the house with his writer son Konstantin. Konstantin’s girl-friend pops in, too, and all of them drift away from each other more and more.

byNWR — Exclusive

MUBI is proud to revive this cult favorite starring a young Dennis Hopper as a sailor who becomes fascinated by a woman who poses as a mermaid in an oceanfront carnival. The latest from byNWR, a series of irresistibly tantalizing genre gems lovingly restored by director Nicolas Winding Refn.

Night Tide | dir. Curis Harrington | 1961 | MUBI release on May 1

A sailor on shore leave becomes fascinated by a woman who poses as a mermaid in an oceanfront carnival. As their relationship blossoms, Johnny realizes that Mora is more than a sideshow illusionist.

Orson Welle’s Birthday

With Citizen Kane too often defining the career of Orson Welles, MUBI will revive the maestro’s wildly inventive Kafka adaptation in honor of his birthday next month. Starring Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau and Welles himself — behold the example of a cinema magician who can make nearly anything from almost nothing.

The Trial | dir. Orson Welles | 1962 | MUBI release on May 6

Josef K wakes up in the morning and finds the police in his room. They tell him that he is on trial but nobody tells him what he is accused of. In order to find out about the reason of this accusation and to protest his innocence, he tries to look behind the facade of the judicial system…

Art of the Real — Exclusive

For the third consecutive year, MUBI will present a curation of highlights from the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of essential nonfiction film. “Art of the Real” celebrates contemporary artists who are re-envisioning the relationship between cinema and reality. This year’s festival takes place April 26–May 6 in New York.

Claude Sautet: A French Classic

A successful and popular director in his home country, Claude Sautet has never had the auteur reputation or cache as the directors of the French New Wave who were his contemporaries. But Sautet had few peers when it came to crafting beautifully scaled, nuanced and deeply understanding dramas of human relations — moving qualities that are on display in MUBI’s four-film retrospective.

Max is a Paris detective, aloof, independently wealthy, and frustrated by gangs of robbers whom he cannot catch. To re-establish his stature and save face, he decides to inveigle a group of petty thieves (led by an old acquaintance) to rob a bank.

César and Rosalie | dir. Claude Sautet | 1972 | MUB release on May 27

Rosalie is amicably divorced, dividing her time between her mother’s house, with her siblings and small daughter, and César’s.

Three friends face mid-life crises. Paul is a writer who’s blocked. François has lost his ideals and practices medicine for the money; his wife grows distant, even hostile. The charming Vincent, everyone’s favorite, faces bankruptcy, his mistress leaves him, and his wife wants a divorce.

A Bad Son | dir. Claude Sautet | 1980 | MUBI release on May 29

Bruno is released from prison. He looks for a job and tries to start a new life. His first stop is at his father’s apartment.

May ‘68 — Exclusive

In honor of the 50th anniversary of May ’68, MUBI presents Romain Goupil’s moving portrait of the French artists and intellectuals who lived through the failed revolution — and subsequent fallout. This newly restored doc from the ‘80s captures the essence of the disillusionment among French radicals during those incredibly pivotal years.

Half a Life | dir. Romain Goupil | 1982 | MUBI release on May 30

Combining home movies, archival footage, and interviews, Goupil recounts his youth in the years leading up to May 1968, and the decade following it, climaxing with the suicide of his friend Michel Recanati. Both bildungsroman and political essay, the film shows how after revolt came disillusionment.